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PRESS RELEASE: Centro Presente Launches Campaign to Educate Immigrant Community About Its Rights in the Age of Trump.

Submitted by pmontes on March 6, 2017 - 6:29pm

PRESSRELEASE

Centro Presente Launches Campaign to Educate Immigrant Community About Its Rights in the Age of Trump.

Media Contact Patricia Montes, Centro Presente 617 483 2937

Boston, MA- In light of the new aggressive measures against the immigrant community taken by the Trump administration, Centro Presente is redoubling its on-going efforts to educate the community about their rights and the reasons why people are coming to the U.S. undocumented. U.S. Customs and Border patrol saw explosive growth under the previous two administrations and deportations reached an historic record high under President Obama. At the same time the unchecked violence, impunity and resulting societal instability in Central America has continued to push families and children to the U.S. only to be caught in this vast militarized web of so-called “security” and deported back to their likely death. This pattern is anticipated to worsen under the xenophobic Trump administration.

“The new administration has changed the policy under which ICE operates. Central Americans will now be immediately deported without access to an immigration court including children held in detention centers who do not have an identified sponsor,” stated Jennifer Hernandez, Immigrant Rights Organizer at Centro Presente. “These families are actually refugees seeking asylum but are treated like criminals and deported. We reject that.”

“Centro Presente has been regularly holding informative events and workshops for the immigrant community, policy makers and the general public to shed light on the situation in Central America, its relation to the increased flow of migrants from that region and the rights that immigrants have once they arrive here, including how they should respond to DHS operations,” said Patricia Montes, Executive Director of Centro Presente. The first of these community education sessions will take place on Saturday, February 25 with the location to be announced. Further sessions will be announced soon. Additionally, Centro Presente will be distributing materials and talking about the issues on their weekly radio program, among other actions.